


Honestly

by KeelahNewVegas



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Early Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 16:25:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeelahNewVegas/pseuds/KeelahNewVegas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard remembers Garrus while she's trapped on Earth. Post ME2 & Pre-ME3</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honestly

**Author's Note:**

> It helps to read Stronger here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/989506 to get some of this Shep's past references.

To anyone who wasn't actually aboard the SR-2, Shepard had betrayed the Alliance and veered dangerously close to becoming Saren after Aratoht had come down.

 

 _I'm Schrödinger's Spectre_ , she laughed to herself. James eyed her a little nervously just inside the perimeter of her vision.  _And Vega thinks I'm losing it._

Sitting in the brig walked the fine line between horrendously maddening and sickeningly calming. Nothing was exploding, no one was dying, and yet everyone was gone. She supposed she had it coming: one didn't steal an Alliance ship, come back from the dead, work for terrorists and fling oneself through the Omega-4 relay only to come back and blow up thousands of batarians if the only way to justify one's actions was a myth they ran on late night "history channel" vids.

 

The Vindicator on the back of one of the armed guards who was chaperoning her to the cafeteria had been the one to remind her of Garrus, of how five months made her feel like he was lost in time; how the SR-2 as it was had been destroyed as they'd disbanded.

  
The night before they'd gone through the relay to the dubiously "disabled" Collector cruiser. Shepard made her way up to her cabin to "sort through some paperwork," which meant cleaning her armor, collapsing and un-collapsing her Scimitar, and trying on all of the obnoxiously branded Cerberus outfits she'd found in her closet. She attempted to put herself back before she differentiated between "biological" and "chronological" age, before she had to explain to officials that "KIA" was a mistake and to former friends that it wasn't. When Garrus had the other side of his face and Ashley didn't look at her like she was the monster Shepard had feared herself to be.

  
After a while (maybe it was an hour or more, she might have lost track of time, she might have been examining how the scars that had disappeared from her face hadn't disappeared from the middle of her spine or the backs of her legs, and she might have turned off the lights to walk around glowing in the dark), she decided that sitting and wishing weren't helping, as all she had accomplished was feeling thoroughly alone.

 

  
Almost manic, she'd sprinted out of her cabin to the elevator and dropped down to the crew deck. She slowed herself down to a brisk walk before realizing that her only witnesses to this particular crime would have been Gardner, who was sleeping like a normal human being, and Chakwas, who seemed to have gotten into the brandy again, seeing as she was sprawled out on the medbay cot. Shepard sprinted up the steps and slammed the side of her fist against the green panel on the door, waiting for it to slide open before bellowing:

 

  
"Garrus Vakarian, teach me how to calibrate!"

 

Garrus was, of course, asleep on his little cot. Well, he wasn't after that display. In fact, he was flailing. It was very funny, Shepard thought to herself (with maybe a touch of sadism), to see a digitigrade person flail. His fringe might have even punched a little hole in his pillow.

 

"What?  _What?_  What the hell is going on? We're four and a half hours ETA, Shepard. Go to bed." All of this was said with a slow, groggy subvocal that only challenged her further. She needed to do something, anything, and calibrate or whatever the hell Garrus did seemed great.

 

"I can't sleep, I'm not going to sleep, I have to do something, help." She wrung her hands and rocked up on the balls of her feet.  _I've been spending too much time with Tali,_ she thought, trying to shake her posture a little straighter.

 

"Shepard, Shepard --why me?" He said plaintively and blinked slowly at her, fully sitting up and rolling his shoulders.

 

"Tali is busy, Miranda's great, she really is, but she's not gonna pal around with me like we're fourteen, Zaeed is going to tell me to 'get out of his goddamn room,' Joker's flying the ship, EDI's antagonizing Joker, Grunt is just gonna want to spar and talk about the blood of his enemies, Jacob's working out, Jack will kill me, Mordin is going to tell me to get out of his lab, Kasumi's spying on Jacob, Samara's meditating, and Thane needs to rest and also isn't as interesting as you."

 

He sighed and his mandibles did...something, and he finally said, "alright."

 

Shepard had felt a second of guilt before she realized he was smiling as he walked to the console. "Come here, and learn the incomprehensible and esoteric art of calibrations."

 

"Where the hell did you learn English like that? You reading Lovecraft at night?"

 

"Lov--no,  _no_ ," he wrinkled his nose and she realized he probably thought she meant romance novels, "Mordin wonders around collecting samples and talking to himself in various languages. I've also unwittingly memorized several hanar proverbs about bubbles."

 

"See why I come to you?"

 

"Yes, yes. Now get over here." Garrus wrapped his arm around both her shoulders and steered her next to him.

 

She was nine again, except instead of Hanlon telling her how the ship moved, he was telling her--with great gusto--how the ship blew things up. He gesticulated and framed out what each equation would do to the Thanix in colorful and sometimes nonsensical metaphors, although she wasn't allowed to touch a thing, damn it all anyway. Well, he wasn't allowed near her shotgun-- maybe they were even. She fell into her old role, mimicked everything and understood close to nil, although she was surprised at how much he mostly just did calculus.

 

After an hour of "calibrating," she had felt her inner smart ass stir and said, "so you just do math problems all day. This is what you're in the middle of."

 

"Math is the universal language of making things work. But it takes a train of thought, you know. Something more than 'CHARGE! SHOTGUN! CHARGE! SHOTGUN!' as I'm trying to snipe." He imitated her battlefield tactics by lurching forward and then flinging his arms apart, punctuated by a mime of her habit of one-handedly ejecting her thermal clip.

 

She had cracked up at that--Garrus would have made a  _hilarious_  vanguard, then straightened up to make her comeback, "charging takes a lot of tactical thought, thank you." She crossed her arms and stuck her chin up in the air.

 

"I see that." He smiled again, then half?-jokingly offered: "I could probably calibrate your amp if I knew the coding language."

 

"I don't think you can calibrate an amp, Garrus. Plus, this thing is experimental, to go with the experimental implant they shoved in the experimental zombie. Experimenting was always Cerberus' forte."

 

"Indeed, you are a human mass relay, and stealer of my headshots. What is that whole set-up, anyway? I want to see."

 

"It might be somewhere weird, Vakarian." She quirked her eyebrows and tried her best to look sly.

 

After a snort and a turian "sound" she was going to have to look up later, he stated: "It's on the back of your neck, which is why you wear your shorter in the back than it is in the front, because it gets hot."

 

"Perceptive," she murmured. She was surprised, fumbling for words again to describe exactly what had...baffled her about his observance, maybe having been examined that closely when she wasn't aware. Maybe baffled wasn't the right word. Flattered? Fascinated? _"Insane" is the word you're searching for, Shep._

 

He shrugged. "The back of your neck shows up hot on my visor's IR."

 

Right. The visor. Nothing out of...the ordinary. "Alright." She turned around to present the back of her neck to him and held the handful of stray hairs out of the way. "There you go. Your commander has 'some assembly required.'"

 

The reference apparently wasn't lost to turian culture, and she had coaxed a snicker out of him. "Ever take it out?"

 

"Sometimes. You're recommended to take them out at night if you have night terrors. I... generally leave mine in, though. Paranoia. The port's funny looking. without it, too." She pressed her amp, --1, 2, 3,-- and out it popped, leaving the titanium slot in the back of her neck. He inspected the port very gently, which may or may not have made her her heart beat in her ears a little.  _Don't think too deeply, Shepard. You_ _might fall in,_  her brain snarked at her. When she turned back around to hand him the amp, instead of seeing the scrutiny that came with this kind of closeness, his eyes were just as calm and slightly curious as they'd ever been, and all feelings of nervousness and awkwardness were gone-- all she felt was comfort and companionship--which was really what she needed. Maybe it would help her breathe again.

 

After five months in the brig, however, it just made her disconsolate.

 

"Now that's just interesting," he had said, as he watched the cover on the back change from her skin tone in her palm to clear in the air and grey in his own hand, turning it over several times and handing it back to her.

 

"Hey, here's something cool," she grabbed his arm as she plugged it back in, laughing as he jerked away from the shock. "Static electricity." She wiggled her fingers.  _Spirit fingers probably mean something very different to turians, she thought to herself._  "Fun stuff."

 

"Fun," he made air quotes, and her eyes narrowed, albeit facetiously.

 

Mustering her "commander" voice at that hour was a little bit of a stretch, but she made a good approximation. "I do not allow that gesture on my ship."

 

"I have dismissed that claim," he goaded, making them again, before she punched him in the shoulder. Affectionate sarcasm couldn't have been in the Reaper's "desired evolutionary path."

 

 _Maybe the stupid fucking squids didn't know what they were doing this time around,_  she thought, picking at the stale spaghetti on her plate. She couldn't stop the grin from breaking out across her face.  _Grunt would hate this stuff._ Her armed guard--she didn't know his name--looked vaguely uneasy at her seemingly misplaced happiness. Some days, she thought about banging on the walls, running back and fourth and wailing, just to give them an interesting day.

 

Back in the main battery, after a moment or two of silence, she had stared a hole in the wall panel behind Garrus and blurted out, "this is completely legitimate and one of us isn't going to end up... spaced, or...or finding out that Cerberus created the Collectors and they turned on them, or...fucking whatever?"

 

Garrus looked down, then clicked his mandibles against his jaw. He craned his neck to break her line of sight and make enough eye contact to try and convey that he wasn't going to humor or patronize her--even if she would have taken a hollow reassurance at that point. "It isn't legitimate, but we're going to be fine. After--after what you did for me about Sidonis, I know there isn't anything you can't lead us through."

 

Several weeks worth of tension left the pit of her stomach. Did  _for_ him. Shepard relaxed, but refocused her eyes on the floor. They hadn't talked very much after she'd put herself in his shot, and she had wondered if she'd put herself between Garrus and peace. Maybe Sidonis had needed to be put down like a sick dog. _"Y_ _ou always regret the things you don't do,"_    _my ass._

 

He shifted his feet, raised his forearms and then lowered them again, before closing the space between them. He had pulled her into a hug, the most awkwardly maneuvered and yet entirely necessary hug of her life. It was the most genuine one she'd received since she'd been alive again, and with no bitter words afterwards. "You are...my best friend, Garrus."

 

Garrus exhaled, rested his chin on her head and said, "likewise." His voice was warm, and so was he. Furthermore, he'd been right on all accounts. The Illusive Man had been lying, but that moment had grown into the most honest relationship of her life.

 

Honesty didn't matter when everyone was convinced the truest thing you could say was insane, but even though it stung her chest telling Vega to slap some face paint over his scars--no matter how befuddled he'd looked-- had served its purpose: it made her remember that outside of her boredom and their incredulity was a was a universe with the possiblity of moments of undefeatable loyalty and sincerity in the face of certain death. Outside of the investigation and condescending interrogations were hands to pull her onto the shuttle while she blew up the Illusive Man's precious information, hands to wrap around her waist and someone to ask enthusiastically if she wanted to watch the explosion.

 

 _Fuck, I miss him,_ she thought as she dumped the rest of the food in the trash. 


End file.
